Thursday, August 30, 2007

The National Football League is launching a makeover of its red, white and blue "NFL Shield" logo that adorns everything from player jerseys to fan T-shirts and hats.

The league is creating a leaner, meaner version of the iconic logo that will debut at the NFL draft in April, 2008. The revamped shield will be slightly taller and thinner, with a new football, fewer stars and darker colors, says Lisa Baird, the NFL's senior vice president of marketing. The redesign marks the first changes to the shield since 1980.

At the NFL's annual meeting this spring, commissioner Roger Goodell talked about the NFL Shield as the "envy of the sports world." The league has been careful to make an "evolutionary, not a radical change," says Baird.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

As much as I dig my moleskin notebooks for on-the-fly quick sketches and note taking, I'm always on the look out and kind of a freak when it comes to nice, small squared graph paper. Which, it turns out, can be hard to find.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

I've always believed that the best way to get something done, regardless of the task at hand, is to simply begin. This goes for just about everything from mowing the lawn or exercising to billing clients or just getting out of bed. (With that said, I also believe that if it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done!)

When it comes to exercise, the hardest part about running, for me anyway, is putting on my shoes. It's always that first step that always the seems the hardest. Then, once I get past the shoes and some light stretching, I'm out there and feeling better just to be moving. This same first step concept also works nicely for work as well. After a couple of cups of coffee and checking the news feeds and email, I get away from the computer, pull out the pen and paper, and the true work finally begins.

If you can relate to any of the above, and even if you're not a designer, you might want to check out the Tutorial Blog, and get some motivation in the form of productivity tips over at their excellent post: 30 Productivity Tips For Designers.

A recent study published in "Personality and Individual Differences" claims that conservatives are less creative than liberals.

The creativity of 422 American college students was measured with questionnaires and exercises such as drawing and photo essays. The findings appear in an article by Stephen J. Dollinger and cites many previous suspicions for the same conclusions-here are three of them from G.D. Wilson:

First, individuals who are threatened by uncertainty may be disposed to focus on lower order needs to increase their safety and security.

Second, conformity to what is conventionally accepted focuses the individual on traditions (what is old), whereas all definitions of creativity include a focus on what is new.

Third, the authoritarian and anti-hedonistic elements of the construct would lead conservatives to devalue imagination.

Devalue the imagination?! Maybe that's why our clients hesitate when we ask them to join us outside of the box. And then again, isn't their hesitation a part of what drives creativity in the first place?

In my experience, the extent of ones creativity is almost always in direct proportion to their personality or lack there of. The more outgoing, curious and passionate one is about life in general the more interesting, creative and comfortable they seem.

It's really a matter of self confidence and self esteem. When you're confident and comfortable with yourself and your capabilities, you're less likely to feel threatened or be insecure about sharing your thoughts and ideas.

But be careful. This can be dangerous. Especially when the higher ups feel threatened by your creativity and self confidence. Once they realize that you in fact have true talent and question their half ass attempt at being creative, your days are numbered.

But, when you really think about it, they're the real losers. Because life must really suck when, after they've spent their lives faking it, living the lie and convincing everyone that they're something they're not, only to find themselves in a position where they actually have to perform and there's no one to blame but themselves when they eventually and inevidably fail.

Then what are they going to do, fire themselves?

Anyway, unfortunately, the entire article is not yet available online. But the abstract is here, and if you want more you'll have to take it up with your local librarian.

Monday, August 13, 2007

The above is one of my contributions, a dentista sign I shot in beautiful Cuernavaca, Mexico.

I'm a member of a few groups over at flickr that share the desire to share. I've recently joined a new group that I've got to pass along - check out this awesome, ever-growing, slide show entitled Signpaintr.

If you're into hand painted signs you 'll love it - and if you'ld like to share some shots of your own, please join the group!.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

That's Right. Tonight, Sunday, August 12th is the peak of the 2007 Perseid meteor shower.

UPDATE: I only got about 3 hours of sleep on Sunday night and it was way worth it! It was a perfectly clear, moonless evening, about 71 degrees for the meteor shower. There were a few long tails that streaked for 2-3 seconds, and one really big bright one that appeared a little after 4am that really lit up the sky. I quit counting after seeing more than 120. Tired, but so happy we stayed up.

And folks, you can't Tivo this...

"It's going to be a great show," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center. "The Moon is new on August 12th which means no moonlight, dark skies and plenty of meteors."

How many? Cooke estimates one or two Perseids per minute at the shower's peak.

Tonight's show is scheduled to peak about 2:45AM down here in Texas where we'll be hangin' in the beautifully dark Teaxs Hill Country, floating in the pool at the awesome Flag Creek Inn.

It's going to be a perfect summer night for checking out the Perseids, drinking some wine and test driving this week's HMK Mystery Stream, (which goes live on Tuesday.)

The source of the shower is Comet Swift-Tuttle. Although the comet is nowhere near Earth, the comet's tail does intersect Earth's orbit. We glide through it every year in August. Tiny bits of comet dust hit Earth's atmosphere traveling 132,000 mph. At that speed, even a smidgen of dust makes a vivid streak of light--a meteor--when it disintegrates. Because Swift-Tuttle's meteors fly out of the constellation Perseus, they are called "Perseids."

Just as an experiment, I'm trying to get a million people to watch this super short video, The Bridge Of Stolen Bicycles, I put together for the Grammy nominated Best Alternative Album 2007 for the amazingly talented John Dufilho.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Pssst. Hey, got 19 and a half minutes to kill and soak up some type awesomeness?

Well, grab some Milk Duds and enjoy!

Mark Klaverstijn and Roel Wouters have put together a 2 Part, best of Typographic Title Sequences that are sure to inspire you to either come up with some great new typographic ideas or perhaps take a long lunch and go check out the new Bourne Ultimatum movie.

Monday, August 06, 2007

Here's a cool article about developers in New York saying they're better able to convey the vibe of a particular building by commissioning or licensing (or illegally using) music for their Web sites and sales offices.

The concept of using music as an effective way to announce a building’s intended demographic without ever saying a word is a great idea.

“Certain types of people generally have an affinity for one type of music more than another,” said Shaun Osher, the chief executive of CORE Group Marketing, which has worked on a number of music-infused campaigns.

Sunday, August 05, 2007

San Francisco's Barry BALCO Bonds tied Hammerin' Hank Aaron's home run mark of 755 last night against The Padres.

Yawn.

I read this morning over at Sports Illustrated that Bonds drew a mixed reaction from the crowd at Petco Park after he homered off Clay Hensley. And it's no surprise to this baseball fan that several fans held up asterisk signs and Bonds was booed as he headed to left field at the end of the inning.

On a more postive note - the real baseball news of the day happened earlier when NY Yankee Alex Rodriguez hit his 500th home run, becoming the youngest player to reach the 500 mark.

I was playing with some anagrams for Barry Lamar Bonds and found it interesting that these almost sound like headlines...

BAN BARRY. ARM SOLD.

BORN A SLY DRAB ARM

BARNYARD ARM SLOB

DRAB BARRY SALMON - Yeah, there's something fishy about that guy...

LARD MAN BARRY - SOB

It's also interesting to note that Bonds hit the tying homer off a former Giants draft pick who was suspended in 2005 for violating baseball's minor league steroids policy. Perfect. I can hear Bonds now claiming that since he was hitting against another cheatin', drug usin' liar that that should cancel out any fowl play. Nice.

Aaron considered his career record for total bases, and not the home run mark, the best measure of him as a ballplayer.

Go Hank!

As Hall of Fame slugger Reggie Jackson put it "I guess you can call him (Hank) the people's home run king."

I think one of the posters in the crowd put it best: "Babe Ruth did it on Hot Dogs and Beer!"

That's Right!

HMK

And by the way, Padres won 3-2 in 12 innings and the Red Sox have the best record in baseball right now with 67 wins.

Thursday, August 02, 2007

I've been researching routers for my studio for a few months now and I stumbled upon one of the coolest looking (not to mention flat out smart!) new products I've seen since, well, the iPhone.

Dig the Belkin N1 Vision router. Easy on the eyes and it only takes a quick glance at the large digital display or using the large button to navigate through its quick screen that displays everything from your speed, upload/download usage, devices connected, and even the date and time.

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Not just because it's bursting with tons of great insight, which it certainly is, but because it's something I'm sure you'll find yourself refering to as often as you share it with others.

Behance is collaborating with a group of fourteen established blogs, all very different, but all with a shared interest in helping people increase productivity (among other self-improvements). They're calling this collaboration LifeRemix.

The Behance team sees this as a great opportunity to share tips for productivity beyond the creative professional community.

Collaborations between organizations with different backgrounds often result in great realizations. To kick off LifeRemix, their group of bloggers collected a list of our 100 best "tips to improve your life." Leo Babauta, author of Zen Habits and member of LifeRemix, compiled the list.

H. Michael Karshis

Howdy, my name is H. Michael Karshis, first son of Henry & Mildred and the oldest of six boys. Yes, my mom was a stay at home Saint. My dad retired from Randolph AFB in 1976 as a Chief Master Sergeant in the Air Force Chaplains Division. I was born in the U.K., educated in both Beantowns - San Antonio and Boston. I am a Creative Gun For Hire currently living the good life in beautiful San Antonio, Texas. But enough about me. Check out my
work and the blogs and you'll get a pretty good idea about what gets me out of bed in the morning...
Peace and thanks for looking.
hmk@sharkthang.com